


Fruitful Journey

by Towelhun (momhuey)



Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: Bipolar Disorder, Humor is always a good thing., M/M, Mental Illness, Original Female Character(s) - Freeform, Original Male Character - Freeform, Reeeeaaallly long - will break into chapters with encouragement, SeTao, Started with Lightening Rod, TaoHun - Freeform, huntao, taose
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-27
Updated: 2014-10-27
Packaged: 2018-02-22 19:43:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,057
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2519570
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/momhuey/pseuds/Towelhun
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lightening Rod is a device in this story.  </p><p>Sehun struggles and those who love him, and those who come to love him have taken his hands and will never let go.  A happy ending is within his reach.</p><p>Writing practice.  Written using a couple of techniques I've never used before.  I've never written in 1st person before and the 2nd technique is a secret.  :-)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fruitful Journey

"Tao, I wanna show you something." I had been waiting all morning for him to get back.

The first thing I always noticed when I saw Tao these days was the tension in his shoulders and around his eyes and mouth. I always hated the helplessness I felt. I knew what was wrong I just never knew what to do.

Maybe the laptop under my arm held the answer.

When we were alone in his room, I opened the lid. "I was skimming the comments under your Instagram posts and I came across something interesting."

He snorted. "There's actually something there besides garbage?"

"Not usually, but after all this anti-fan, saesang crap, I keep tabs." I scooted next to him so we could both look. "Anyway, I found a comment that was repeated on almost all of your posts." I pointed to one. It was in English.

"It says "800-4ASehun fictionhome.net Lightening Rod." Tao showed no reaction. "Back in the U.S. there's this thing called 800-4ACHILD. It's a number anyone can call anonymously if they suspect a child's in need of help."

Tao turned so that he had a better look at the screen. "Someone's trying to tell me that Sehun needs help?"

"Or someone’s saying "Help Sehun." Tao sighed tiredly and looked ready to shut this conversation down.

"Wait, there's more." I started typing fictionhome.net into the browser. "A lot more." I was hired to perform a number of services for Tao. I was a bodyguard and a chauffeur. And because I knew several languages, I was a translator and interpreter. I was going to provide that service now.

"Lightning Rod." I pointed to the English letters on the screen.

Tao leaned in and squinted. "Wasn't that part of the Instagram comment?"

"Yeah. It's a piece of fan fiction." Tao made a disgusted face and started to get off the bed. "Wait. This is different." I grabbed his sleeve and didn't let go until he sat back down. "Let me read it to you. It's not long."

Half an hour later, I watched Tao's reaction. He'd looked like he'd shut me down before I'd started and I wasn't sure he’d even listened. He hadn't moved a muscle since I started reading the piece and now that I was finished, he still hadn't moved.

"Is this a sasaeng?" I knew he was only asking so we could get that off the table. Neither of us thought that the rabid, foaming at the mouth stalkers had the insight or empathy to be the author of this written work.

"No. And I had Huan from IT check and he tracked the IP back to," I couldn't help a snort of laughter, "Ohio. In the United States. Dude, I bet they have Tao statues on Mars." When Tao just looked at me, I brought up a map and showed him where this writer lived.

"Then how can this writer describe this stuff so well? Half of the members don't know this."

"There's more." I was kind of excited, feeling like we were intrepid explorers on a quest. I clicked some more and opened up the comments section. There was only one and then a corresponding response from the writer.

"Looks like the fan girls don't like this story," Tao sneered. "Not enough fairy dust, I suppose."

"This comment is from me." I opened the comment window.

_This is awesome. I can totally believe that cutie TaoTao was hired to bring EXO into the spotlight! And the part about Hunnie? Are you a psych major maybe, or a psychiatrist lol.. Yur descriptions of bipolar cant be by a regular person. Anyway, loved this! Please write more taohun_

"Hunnie? You sound like an idiot."

"Fan girls are idiots. Anyway, here's the response."

_I am very happy that you enjoyed Lightning Rod. Regarding Sehun’s story, I’m not a doctor or student but I do have some perspective on bipolar disorder and hoped that my experience made this story more realistic and thus more enjoyable. And it is my fervent wish that there is help for anyone with these symptoms as well as their loved ones who always suffer just as much. Anyway I hope my good thoughts and wishes make their way to hearts in need._

I sat quietly on the bed and waited for Tao's response to this. Now that I'd shown the whole thing to him, I felt kind of dumb. Looking at the screen, I'm not sure what I wanted to accomplish. Looking at the story and the Instagram post, it was clear that the writer had suspicions that Sehun was bipolar or had another mental illness.   But honestly, now that I thought about it, I didn't even know how Tao felt about that? Did he even believe in mental illness? There were many, especially here in Korea, who did not; who would not. Like homosexuality, mental illness didn’t exist in Korea.

Tao hadn’t said anything more about this that night. He just left the room and went in search of Sehun. Before I left for the evening, I hovered around the refrigerator and watched them out of the corner of my eye. Sehun was such a yoyo anymore; we never knew what flavor of Sehun we’d have from one day, or even one hour, to the next.

Today was happy Sehun. Scratch that, today was manically rapturous Sehun. Manically rapturous, disgustingly besotted with Tao, Sehun. As opposed to last week’s, “I’m going to be a giant dick to Tao” Sehun. But right now, he was curled up in Tao’s lap like a cat and working to crawl inside Tao's shirt.

The tension that was always in Tao’s shoulders these days was still there, but as he stroked Sehun’s head, I could tell he had taken a step back and was studying this.

++

“I want to talk to her. You can make that happen, right?”

I could proudly say that I saw this coming from a mile away. “You know there are 800 billion psychiatrists, psychologists, general practitioners and people with mental illness between here and Ohio, right?” I poked him affectionately. “And a lot of them actually speak Korean.”

We walked almost another block before Tao answered. “I want to talk to her.”

“Why?”

“Her story,” he said. “She wrote about Sehun and how terrible it was for him and how much help he needed.” Tao stopped and turned in my direction. I was surprised to see he was crying.

“But she wrote about Tao, too.” He scrubbed his eyes and looked at the sky. He knew he could be like this with me, so I reached out and squeezed his shoulder. After a minute he continued. “In her story, all of that was hard on Tao, too. It hurt him physically and emotionally. In her story, he wasn’t alone, he had help, too.” His head dropped and he covered his face. “In her story, Tao, I mean I…”

A real sob escaped so I stepped closer and put my arm around his shoulders. “Go on.”

“She didn’t judge…she said it was ok…that Tao wasn't a bad person...”

I waited.

“In her story,” Tao whispered, “Tao had doubts. Tao was tired and hurt and didn’t know what he felt or didn’t feel...about Sehun. What he felt or…didn’t…feel…about Sehun.”

I got it. I got all of it. Tao and Sehun was a very complicated ‘thing.’ Of course there was TaoHun, a wholly owned subsidiary of SM. Over the years they’d been backed into a corner and were now show ponies to be trotted out as part of the EXO show.

There was also Tao and Sehun. They really were great. I had been here about as long as Tao had so I’d been able to watch their growing bond from the beginning. I’ll be honest, in the beginning I flinched from watching a developing relationship between two guys. But I came to really love those two kids and when I saw how crazy happy they made each other, I found myself rooting for them.

This relationship was so important to both of them, not only because they loved each other, but also they were each other’s family. They were both far from home and found comfort in each other. I saw their dependence on each other early on; the two seemed to have this radar for one another. In public I could see their agitation if they didn’t see each other or know where the other was. Once eye contact was made, even I could feel the world exhale.

But Tao was having doubts. He said he was hurt and tired and I knew that he was. I knew he was terrified. Tao loved what they had and wanted it for the rest of his life. The end of this thing was one of the most horrifying things Tao could think of. It would be the death of the family he'd made. He knew that it would be the death of Sehun's family, too and felt enormous amounts of guilt that he was having even tiny flickers of doubt. He had started thinking of himself as selfish and weak and heartless.

But things weren’t the same as they were. Sehun had always been a little quirky and sometimes pretty moody. Tao and I had talked about it some and came to believe that those issues were a byproduct of Sehun’s genius brain. Seriously, it was a genius brain, complete with the Mensa card Tao had pushed him to get. But since Tao’s emotional spectrum ran pretty wide, too, it was ok.

Occasionally there were issues that came up because Sehun did have a cold streak and a razor sharp tongue. Tao was a gooey warm marshmallow who was easily hurt by the one he loved more than anyone else.

This year, though, things changed a lot. None of them had really had a clue about how unbelievably hard the world tour would be. For months they didn’t eat properly and every one of them dropped too much weight. They didn’t sleep. Tao said he couldn’t get the deafening roar of their fans out of his ears. He tried plugging his ears and then tried to sleep to the music on his phone, but said the noise just wouldn’t go away.   I seriously doubted that there would be eleven of them on stage for their last concert.

Sehun was worse; he shed way too many pounds and I know he didn’t sleep any better than the rest. But his moods started looking kind of ugly. I really started to feel kind of sick around them as I watched their interaction. I don’t know how else to say it except that Sehun was just mean. But only to Tao. It hurts to say it, but the more hurt Tao was about something, the happier Sehun seemed to be. I watched the TaoHun parade through airports and more often than not, Sehun was smiling and skipping and waving to fans, while next to him, Tao was miserable.

But then, it would all flip over. Sehun would become a wreck, apologizing on his knees, begging for forgiveness. Which Tao always gave, in spite of the complete confusion he felt about all of it. He knew there was something wrong between them, but could never figure out who did what wrong and why there was an issue to begin with.

But Sehun’s moods had been shifting more frequently and had been reaching more extremes. I watched him not long ago and he was flitting around, hyped up, laughing a hair from being out of control. An hour later he was soaking Suho’s shirt over the text message he just got from Tao that said he’d be home on the early flight and would see him tomorrow. “He hates me.” I have no idea what he read into that text that the rest of us missed.

When I saw the writer’s message that was meant to get to Tao, it hit me and I felt bad that I hadn’t known it before. Her message said that Sehun needed help. The only thing I could think was, ‘yes.’ Then I read the story. It described Sehun laughing manically, abusing Tao, crawling on his knees, sobbing with snot running down his face. He was mean and he was terrified. He was the same Sehun sitting back at the dorm right now.

Yes, Sehun needed help. And Tao needed help. I cracked my knuckles. It looked like I’d be going back into intrepid explorer mode and trying to hook up a bi-lingual Chinese idol from Korea with an English speaking clairvoyant mystery woman from Cincinnati, Ohio.

++

I stared at a blank comment box under Lightening Rod for a good half hour and finally decided to be brief and to the point;

_I am writing on behalf of Huang ZiTao as his translator. He would like to communicate with you about your story._

I knew I was going to have to dig deep into my junior adventurer’s kit in order to overcome this;

 _Several years ago I got the best review ever when a reader wrote, “Fuck you, your story is awesome. And while we’re at it, fuck you because you’re awesome.” I think that is still my favorite, but yours is a close second_.

“Tao,” I grabbed his sleeve as I passed him and dragged him along with me. “Time for a Meipai post.”

Tao’s mood always improved when he played with this stuff so he handed me an admirable creation.

I gave myself two days before checking back for a response from our writer, but I was actually shivering with excitement over this whole thing. I pictured her going to my comment, which was just a hyperlink and the words; “Tao’s Meipai update on the topic of Lightning Rod.” I would give a kidney to be able to see her face.

I felt like we were three thirteen year old girls huddled next to each other, our heads crammed together so we could all see the laptop screen. Three? Yes, we dragged a mopey Sehun with us. Tao had gone ahead and explained everything to Sehun because he didn’t want to make anything worse by having Sehun think he was lying or sneaking. Sehun was surprisingly quiet on the subject of him possibly having an illness that was making him unhappy.

So hopefully sometime in the last two days, our writer would have clicked on the link to Tao’s Meipai video and been greeted by Tao in an ugly sweater vest and horn rimmed glasses leaning against a bookcase with a thick book open in his hands. Then after Tao glanced at the camera and then back at the book, my voice cut in and said in English, “Lightening Rod. A person who attracts controversy, strong feelings, etc. and conducts that attention by providing a direct path to the target. Example; Tao is the Lightning Rod for EXO.

Then Tao looked back up and put his hand to the side of his face in the simulation of a phone and mouthed the English words, “Let’s talk, okay?”

“What if she didn’t even check her comments?” I reached over and slapped Sehun in the back of the head.

“You’re going to bring bad luck, you little punk.” I liked the cheeky grin he saved for the times I called him punk.

Tao shoved my finger away from the touchpad and started navigating to the comment section of Lightning Rod.

WORDS!!!!!!!! Hallelujah. There was a response.

_Well then. I’m speechless. Okay, I’m not speechless. I’m never speechless. I do wish I had known that people who don’t read English were going to be looking at my work. I wouldn’t have stressed myself so hard about the use of ‘lie’ versus ‘lay.’ In case you're interested, I decided 'screw it' and just wrote “crawled onto the bed”._

_By any chance does Tao represent Publisher’s Clearing House? Or a sinister, shadow branch of Jehovah’s Witnesses?_

_Maybe Tao got a copy of my latest story and is upset? You know, the one about a post-apocalyptic Korea where EXO wanders a ravaged wasteland bereft of fashion hair colors, facing off against JPop groups in cruelly unfair dance-offs?_

_Or I can make him and Sehun vampires. I’m talented like that._

_Okay, now I am speechless. Not really. I am – ok, maybe kinda speechless – because I can’t think of the right words. Confused? Doubtful? Suspicious? Unconvinced that I’m even awake? Did I mention doubtful? And suspicious? And hungry?_

_Alright, I’m going to pretend for one minute that I am a gullible sucker who was born yesterday and believe I have been contacted by Tao (see how stupid that actually sounds)…_

_“Hello, Tao – can I call you Tao? What can I do for you?”_

_When you come here to respond, bring a sandwich._

I wheezed a last laugh, wiped tears from my eyes and fist pumped. “I love this woman!” I then turned to Tao and Sehun, and as an image of Lay admiring a stuffed and mounted Kamenashi Kazuya filled my head, I laughed and fist pumped again, repeating in Korean, "I love this woman!"

“We’ve got her,” I waggled my eyebrows at them. “Now what do we do with her?”

Tao got that look that reminded me I'm a peon. "Get her a visa, of course."

++

I

Tintin: It's simple. You sent us a message and we got it.

notdeadyet: Did he also get my message that he looks like a piece of dandelion fluff and I'm going to come to Korea and shove a box of HoHo’s down his throat?

Tintin: Hmm. I think we missed that one. But, yeah, he misses too many meals. Which brings me to the point.

notdeadyet: Do you have to?

Tintin: We - Tao and I - read Lightning Rod and then had security check the dorm to make sure you hadn't set up spy central in the linen closet.

notdeadyet: Ha ha

Tintin: Seriously your story could have been a diary of the last six months here. You really came to believe that just from the stuff you get to see on the Internet?

notdeadyet: Short answer is yes, but I'm fairly tentative about that. See, I'm kinda old and wear my age around like a badge. My cred is that I've arrived here at this advanced state with some wisdom, understanding of humanity and powers of observation.

Tintin: sounds reasonable

notdeadyet: Except, fuck me if I'm not wrong sometimes!!!!!!!!! As in, if I had just seen the five seconds before X photo was taken, I wouldn't have made such a gigantic, and unfortunately belligerent, and even more tragic, PUBLIC ass of myself.

Tintin: Yeah, your name is legendary in KPop circles.

notdeadyet: Funny thing about written communications. You could actually be joking while I sit here crying.

Tintin: I am kidding. But seriously, back to Tao and Sehun.

notdeadyet: I wish there was a font that expresses unenthusiam.

Tintin: Tao and I know that Sehun needs help. It caught our attention that your story describes him as bipolar.

notdeadyet: There are many flavors of mental illness. Can we talk a moment? I really, really HATE the phrase ‘mental illness.’ The allusion is that there is something wrong with the mind, which is not the same thing as the brain. Mind really means personality and character and knowledge. The treatable illness is a physical condition of the brain caused by an imbalance in chemicals and has nothing to do with the mind. But insurance companies find the acronym TIIAPCOTBCBAIICAHNTDWTM a bit cumbersome for minimum wage claims processors so we’re stuck with ‘mental illness.’

Tintin: You mentioned that in the story and we understood right away. You don't have to preach to this choir. Use whatever terms are most satisfying for you, although that acronym makes me feel seasick.

notdeadyet: I need to back up. Why are we discussing terminology and diagnosis? I have never met Sehun or seen even one minute into his life. And even if I did, I am not a doctor. I can offer all the sympathy and empathy you can carry, but that's all. Let me ask my question again; "What can I do for you?"

Tintin: Tao wants you.

notdeadyet: Are you old enough to know what a whisk broom is? Give me a few minutes to get that and a dustpan; it's messy when your head explodes.

Tintin: Lol. I could have phrased that better. Tao has latched onto your story. He’s kind of obsessing over it.

notdeadyet: What does that mean?

Tintin: First, Tao and Sehun are together. They are each other's family; each other's important person.

notdeadyet: Stop. I already get it. Sehun is suffering and because of this, Tao is suffering. Sehun is the one with the illness, so he is the one getting the help. On top of that, in spite of the fact that Tao is probably being abused by Sehun, everyone looks at him and beats him over the head with their expectations of what he needs to do to "be supportive" and "be there for" Sehun. He'll be reminded endlessly that, in spite of already carrying around Mt Fuji on his shoulders, he needs to be Sehun's rock. He needs to "be there" physically and emotionally. While handling his own responsibilities, he needs to pick up slack in their day to day living and careers and at the end of the day give Sehun a nice foot rub and tuck him in bed with a glass of warm milk. All this when he's not busy cleaning up social and personal messes created by Sehun and adjusting the paper target taped to his chest.

Tintin: This is why Tao is so focused on you.

notdeadyet: Let's cut to the chase, because, seriously, I have no idea what you guys are looking for from me. I am afraid however, that it's something I am 100% unqualified to give. I can't nor would I even try to diagnose Sehun. In fact, I refuse. He needs a psychiatrist for that. I'm only marginally satisfied with my own psychiatrist and in any event he doesn't speak Chinese.

Tintin: Come to Korea.

Tintin: Are you still online?

Tintin: Hello?

notdeadyet: I'm here. I just don't have any idea what to even write.

Tintin: Look, Tao is on wobbly legs and I've been able to do only so much. The pressure he has from so many directions is mind boggling and with all this stuff with Sehun, he's hanging on by his fingernails.

notdeadyet: I honestly do understand. But still, I can’t help him carry his or Sehun’s load.

Tintin: He saw your story, and how you understood his side of it. It looked like a life preserver to him. You stood in his shoes and acknowledged his struggles. Your story, and you, looked like a hand held out to him. He's almost out of strength and he thinks you can help him find more.

notdeadyet: You'll get nowhere by making me cry.

Tintin: Lol, I don't think that's true.

notdeadyet: Jerk

Tintin: Come to Korea.

notdeadyet: I don't speak Korean

Tintin: I do and I’ll be glued to your side.

notdeadyet: I don't have a passport. Or visa. Or mastercard, or whatever the hell....

Tintin: Three letters; T-A-O. You agree to come and you won't need to do anything but grab your toothbrush. In fact you can skip that too; we'll take care of everything.

notdeadyet: I like my toothbrush.

Tintin: Just walk out your door, get in the waiting car and next thing you know you’ll be waking up in Incheon

notdeadyet: My job...

Tintin: Give me your boss's name and phone number.

notdeadyet: My dogs...

Tintin: Depends on whether you want them in Korea with you or not.

notdeadyet: Stop this right now. This is crazy. I don't deserve this view of me that you have. I don't have anything to offer that I couldn't give via email or...or...he'd truthfully find better stuff in a self help book.

Tintin: He wants this. You don't know him but he is a giver and not a taker. He's a young man hardly out of his teens and he's been wrangling all of Asia on his own for the benefit of himself and his EXO family. No he's not totally selfless and the lion's share of his existence is part of the job and his responsibilities. But it's a huge load and he's now trying to carry Sehun and his load, too. This is kicking his ass. It's kicking both their asses. You might not be able to do anything for him or them, but he wants it, so I'm going to go find the roll of duct tape in my garage and 'convince' you that a short vacation in Korea is a good idea.

notdeadyet: ooo, you're scary.

Tintin: I'm his bodyguard.

notdeadyet: Seriously?

Tintin: Yep.

Tintin: Are you still there?

notdeadyet: Bob.

Tintin: ??

notdeadyet: My boss’s name is Bob.

Tintin: woot! Fasten your seatbelt and enjoy the flight.

++

I really can’t decide if I’m excited, nervous or dreading this whole thing. She’s been the most agreeable, easiest person to work with, but now that I’m faced with introducing her to Tao and Sehun, I’m really having doubts.

Tao is going to scare her off. As he sinks deeper and deeper into his mess, he’s built higher and higher expectations of her. I can almost see the invisible basket of troubles he’s carrying around and getting ready to dump on her. Both she and Tao may well kill me. I’ve gone so far as to look up the meaning of the word ‘extradition.’

Sehun is interesting. He knows that we’ve shipped someone in from the United States and I think he’s afraid. He’s been very docile.

“Excuse me.”

I almost jumped a foot but then smiled at the attractive woman in front of me. “Baggage claim is over there.” Her smile slipped and I suddenly realized that she spoke to me in English. And she was not Asian.

“You’re…you’re,” and then my mouth spit out what had really popped into my brain first. “You’re not old.”

Mortified, I saw her arms drop and a deadpan look take her face.

“And you’re not ugly.” She tilted her head. “Much.”

I shout of laughter burst from my mouth and I wondered what the hell was wrong with me. Having already broken the cardinal man-code, I took a minute to take in her appearance.   I looked her up and down, from the wavy, waist length dark hair with, was that pink streaks, to the skinny jeans tucked into unlaced…tiny…combat boots, it was clear that she exaggerated her oldness.

My inventory was interrupted when she put her hands on her hips and said, “You put every single article of clothing back on me, you letch.”

Another bark of laughter shot out of my mouth and I caught sight of Tao and Sehun. They were hiding behind a potted fern looking at us wide eyed.

She looked over at them also and I watched her with interest. The sass and bravado of this woman completely disappeared. She stiffened and I watched her swallow nervously several times.

“Why the hell did I even consider this ridiculous request,” she whispered.

I leaned down and grinned. “Don’t be nervous; they're both very nice.”

“This was the most arrogant, ill-thought…” She looked at me with wide eyes. “I have no credentials at all. What if I can’t help?” She looked back at the guys. “What if I make things worse?”

For some reason I didn’t think she’d mind, so I reached out and put my hand on her shoulder. “Don’t think about it too much. Honestly I don’t really know what Tao wants to get out of this. He probably doesn’t either. Anyway, it’s just for a few days.”

She took a deep breath. “Alright, it must have cost you a small fortune to bribe my boss, so I guess I ought to meet them. How do I greet these guys?”

I scratched my head in amazement.   In spite of the contrary evidence of Tao and Sehun shoving each other in a mini war behind the plant, they had become 100% immune to meeting new people. They didn’t stress one iota because they ceased to be impressed, or even care, a long time ago. Except, uhm…

“From the looks of it, they’ll bolt out of the airport before you ever get to that part. Probably because you’re making their bodyguard look like a doofus.”

“You needed my help with that?” I grinned and followed her across the concourse.

When we got there, Tao and Sehun were checking her out and talking to each other. She waited politely then snapped her fingers suddenly and turned to me.

“Oh, yeah, I forgot. How do you say ‘old’ in Korean?”

On reflex I answered with the same word that had just left Tao’s and Sehun’s mouths. All three of us flinched.

Her eyes narrowed and her lips pursed. Then she made a fist and punched me in the arm. Tao and Sehun gaped at me. I had no idea what to say to them. She’d punched me and it was ok. It was funny even because we’d been friends for hundreds of years.   I clapped my hand over my mouth, stunned to realize that I had just giggled.

We spent a few minutes where we stood as I made introductions and talked about communicating comfortably while using an interpreter. There was an odd energy and I could tell that Tao and Sehun felt it too. It wasn’t high energy; in fact it was kind of serene but at the same time it buzzed with…now she had me thinking like a poet...it buzzed with purpose. I felt myself relaxing, suddenly sure that we had just met a knight in shining armor of sorts. I knew, though, she’d be right back on that plane if she got wind that I thought that. Or maybe not. I had an inkling that she wouldn’t leave someone in need if there was any chance she could help.

I asked her if she was tired and wanted to get some rest in her room and she shook her head firmly. She looked at Tao and Sehun. “I’m sure you two are always tired so I’m not going to feel too bad about suggesting we talk now.” She noticed the growing body of fans pressing their way closer and closer.

“How’s my room? Could we be comfortable there?”

++

“Do you know how I ended up here?” She didn’t let Sehun answer. “You asked me to come.”

Sehun didn’t move or speak.

“You have an illness and I knew about it just from looking at photos and videos. You’ve been in pain for a long time and nearly all of your actions have revolved around trying to get help.”

Tao looked thunderstruck. “What? Sehun…”

“You've been asking the whole world and you thought no one heard you. You’ve thought that the ones closest to you should have heard you but they didn't,” she said, “so you’ve been furious, scared, hurt and hopeless.”

She scooted her chair closer, close enough to grip his hand. “But Tao did hear you. He heard you right away. He just didn’t know how to help you. But now together we can make a plan so that everything will be okay. So that you can be happy. So that both of you can be happy.”

The tension here was about to kill me. I could almost hear the snide remarks backing up in his throat. He didn’t want to hear her words or have her touch him; he was staying still and silent because of Tao.

On the other hand I didn’t think she was oblivious to that. I had the sense she was testing the waters; trying to find out something about Sehun’s state, maybe how much was sadness or how much was rage. I think she deliberately layered on some melodrama and physical touch trying to see if he would blow up or collapse. She cleared her throat and leaned back in her chair.

“Do you know why else I’m here? Tao needs help, too. He’s in pain too, and has been calling out for help. No one heard him either, except for me.”

Sehun finally said something. “I know. He’s ready to get rid of me because I’m horrible.”

Somehow I knew that we should leave this to her because Sehun never really heard Tao anymore. Anyway, Tao was pretty hosed and wouldn’t be convincing.

“We already talked about how your lifestyles have torn you both apart. Tao is so tired that he’s barely making it. He’s so tired that he called me to come here. Now that I’m here, we have jobs to do in order to get better. You’re both too tired to help each other so for a while we’re going to let him do his job, and you do yours.”

She pulled a Sharpie out of her back pocket and held up one finger.

“You have one job.”

She handed me the Sharpie and then held Sehun’s left hand out to me.

“In Korean, pretty small, write ‘appointment.’ Sehun, you have one thing to do. Just one. You have an appointment in the morning. You have nothing to do before that and nothing to do after. That is all you need to think about. That is the only goal you have. If you start to worry that Tao is upset, or get anxious because you don’t know how we’ll fix this, look at your hand.” She pointed to his palm. “Appointment. It's the most important thing in your life. Nothing else in the whole world matters. You don’t have to do anything else or think about anything else.

“You’re going to stay with me. They’ll bring whatever you’ll need to stay a few days. Comfortable stuff since we’ll probably stay in except for the doctor’s appointment. Sehun, if the chemicals in your brain have gotten out of balance, your diet, lack of sleep and stress played a huge part in it. I want you here so that you can rest without fans, members, SM staff or even Tao getting in the way.”

I could tell he was only half listening, because his attention had turned to Tao. “Don’t leave me.”

She took his hand, opened it and pointed to the ink. “Appointment. Nothing else. He has his own job to do. Your job is appointment.”

Suddenly I felt it; mean Sehun was going to make an appearance.

"You've got a lot of nerve, you decrepit fan girl, coming to MY country and kidnapping me, telling me what to do. Do you know who I am? Do you think I'm some kind of child that you have to talk to me like a three year old and write my instructions on my hand? Appointment, appointment, appointment. I stopped listening to that bullshit after the first ten times you said it."

Dear god. Tao and I had been subjected to this Sehun more than we ever wanted. It was horrible. But this? I was terrified that she was going to grab her stuff, tell Sehun to go fuck himself and call herself a cab. Tao would...this was bad bad bad.

She nodded. "The only thing that matters is 'appointment.' When you think of it, as many times as you need to, look at your hand and remember that nothing before that matters. Including this." She waved her arm to indicate this scene.

Sehun leaned back in his chair and shot her one of the ugliest looks I’d seen on his face. His look was declaring war and retribution and his sneer promised her that he had the upper hand here and a plane was waiting to take her when she tucked her tail and ran.

She stepped around him, looking completely unaffected and took Tao's arm. "Tao, Sehun's job is the hardest and he’s struggling with it.” I noticed her repetition of the same words and phrases. “But, it's impossible for you to do both of your jobs and also do his so you need to go. Go do your jobs; rest and food. And try to get some sunshine. I know you’re about to break so you need to..."

Sehun suddenly stopped his performance and whipped his head in Tao's direction. I was gripped by this unfolding scene.

Sehun crept like a frightened animal up to Tao. Something about the way he studied Tao's face and looked up and down his body was different. It struck me that this was the first time Sehun had actually seen Tao in months.

"You look...terrible."

I saw her nod at Tao.

"Sehun, I feel terrible. Everything from my body to my heart hurts."

Sehun made a small whining noise. He traced a finger gently down Tao's jaw and silent tears rolled down his cheeks. He straightened and swiped at the wetness under his nose.

"Sleep. And food. Yes. That’s a good plan." Sehun gripped Tao's shoulders. "You go and get better. And I'll sleep, too." I almost felt the room sway when Sehun opened his fist and looked at the black marks on his palm. "Appointment."

++

“I don’t like this,” Tao said after we went out into the hallway. “I shouldn’t leave him.”

“Tao, honestly, and you know this, Sehun isn’t even in there.” Tao looked like he’d been punched. “That guy in there has a confusing mess in his head. And it hurts him to see you. How many times has he asked you what’s wrong in the last few months?”

Wow. I’d heard him say it a hundred times. I could only imagine how many times Tao had heard it. He didn’t answer but she went on.

“Symptoms of some types of imbalance are obsession and rumination.”

I stumbled over a word for rumination.

“Thinking the same thoughts over and over and over. He studies your face and your body language with a microscope and no matter what he sees, whether it's something or nothing, he’s sure you’re done with him. Those thoughts have become a broken record in his head.”

“I can’t stand the thought of him being in so much pain. I want to…”

He looked at me but I didn’t have any suggestions for something Tao could do. Except…leave Sehun with this woman.

“Anyway, he has his appointment tomorrow. I have faith that you used all your resources and we have the best doctor there is. He’ll take his first pills tomorrow afternoon and, to me, that’s exciting. Whether we hit the right pills the first time or not, it's the end of floundering. We already know where we want to go and we're finally taking the first step to get there. I’m optimistic enough that I feel like celebrating already.”

I turned to go back into the hotel room.

“Wait a minute.” She pulled her phone out of her back pocket and held it up to take a photo of Tao. Selca king Tao started to cover his face but then she brought the phone back down and leaned toward him. She messed up his hair and then pinched the skin around his eyes. “Actor Huang, let’s see what you look like if you think about…hmm…concerts every single day for six straight months with Sehun hitting on other guys to hurt you in one moment and then begging you not to leave in the next.”

Tao thought a moment and then his face looked exhausted and broken.

“Awesome, you look like shit.” She squeezed his arm. “I promise only one person will see this photo.”

Knowing she wouldn't understand this, I said to Tao in Korean, "We can't let her leave."

++

"I like the doctor." Suho had taken Sehun for a complete physical so it was just me, Tao and her talking over lunch. "I feel he knows his stuff about medication."

"But," she held her finger up, "there are a gigantic number of chemical combinations out there and the only way to see if one is working is to watch Sehun. He's not well enough or objective enough to watch himself.

“Tomorrow he'll be dejected that he doesn't feel any different. After a week he'll be dejected because he feels worse. Anytime he feels any doubt or makes any noises about quitting, we call the doctor and let them talk."

Tao shrunk at the look of disgust she gave him. "All your money and fame and he still threw us out after 20 minutes. Then I pushed to get his private number. You guys aren't all the shit you think you are because he almost laughed us out of the room. He did give us an emergency number and conceded to making special efforts to return our calls to his answering service. If he wasn't busy and if it wasn't in the middle of a rerun of The Heirs.

"What now?"

"This situation is 100% physical now. Everything emotional needs to be put on the back burner. The chemicals need time to work, so we wait. It's hard to say how long, but his shit physical health won't help. So, same as yesterday, we'll concentrate on sleep, diet, sunshine, and relaxation.

"Tao, how are you feeling?"

Tao didn't answer and I could tell that if he opened his mouth, he was going to cry.

"You seem stressed to make some kind of decision right now. There’s absolutely no reason to, so don't. Right now, you’re like a soldier just returning from a battlefield. You have your own trauma that’s making your own judgment skewed. Kind of like PTSD. You're feeling something like fight or flight. I don't know what will come, but I promise that after your physical health returns and we get Sehun squared way, your feelings will change."

“Sehun squared away…”

I knew what Tao was thinking and didn’t have the courage to ask so I did, “Is there a chance that he won’t ever…that he might not…”

“Nope! If we stick to it…appointments…pills…physical health, I guarantee he’ll be fine.”

Her smile settled every nerve in my body and I realized how upset I’d been over all this. I could fall in line behind her and help keep the little duckies on the path. I smiled back at her and after she and I bumped fists, she picked up Tao’s hand and bumped theirs together for him.

++

We got into this weird ritual. Sehun seemed to have given into his body's needs and slept like the dead for the first couple of days, getting up to eat a bit, take a leak and take his pills. On the third day, he got up and sat at the table looking so sad. He ignored the food she put in front of him, got up and shuffled into the bathroom. Without shutting the door, he slid to the floor and leaned against the tub.

After about half an hour, she grabbed her laptop and motioned me to follow her into the bathroom. After getting us situated, with me having to get comfortable in the tub, she started talking.

She got on this running monologue and seemed to have no interest in whether he participated, or even listened. She talked about how she had serious concerns about what she was going to eat.  She talked about the Showtime episode where they ate intestines, then proceeded to make gagging noises. And the pork ChanYeol cooked didn't even look all the way done and had any of them ever heard of trichinosis?

That first day she started her tale on how she landed on EXO, explaining that she started by watching Naruto while trying to bond with her son. Part the way through her meandering journey through Asia, Sehun got up and shuffled out of the bathroom.

She wasn’t the slightest bit offended. To keep him from ruminating had been her purpose, she’d said. He needed distraction from his own brain, even if it was with something annoying.

The second time he got up in the middle of one of her stories, she asked him to wait and after she piled bedding out on the balcony, she said he should sleep out there in the warm sunshine so his body could absorb Vitamin D which would help his meds work. He didn’t seem to care one way or the other, but his mood was much better when he woke up closer to evening.

That evening our bathroom meeting was somewhat livelier; Sehun actually participated a little. She used the little she knew, mostly through Showtime episodes, to ask him questions. Did they really go out without wallets, completely relying on someone to take care of them? Did Suho really have any leadership authority or was it dog and pony show?  Did he truly inspire anyone and what about that thing about carrying a first aid kit in his suitcase, because it looked like an embarrassing contrived pile of crap.

The next evening, I was pretty excited and kept thinking about what Tao would think, because Sehun was in a pretty good, mellow mood. She kept the mood light and after first promising to keep his secrets from Tao could he tell her, did he ever think about girls or get any tingles over bombshells like Megan Fox, whom, he had surprisingly known about.

I don’t recall exactly what brought it up, but she whipped out a white board and made a list of EXO members in order of hotness. We knew who number one was when she opened her laptop lid and found a photo of Wushu Tao as her background. Actually, when she was finished with her list, there were nine people tied for first, then Sehun was second and ChanYeol was third.

The next evening Sehun was pretty lucid and for the first time, asked about Tao. We got on her laptop and she had Sehun poke around for a while and find his favorite happy photo of Tao and put it on his phone. His emotions waffled as he saw both happy and not so happy photos of Tao on the Internet, but he finally settled on one.

Then she got her phone out and showed Sehun the photo she’d taken in the hallway.

“Sehun, this is what Tao looks like when his back is breaking.” Sehun looked stricken. “You did not do this. Tao has a lot of pressure. Tao likes pressure and always takes on too much. I think that Tao is confident, in control and likes to try to wrangle the universe. Right?” Sehun nodded.

“But you can help lighten his load. I know that he loves to take care of you, but he knows he’s at his limit and needs to take care of just himself for a while. That doesn’t mean be separated from you; just that he can’t carry you right now.  He needs to not have to worry about you now.”

Sehun fiddled around with his phone, and I could tell he was thinking hard. Finally he picked up the sharpie. He looked quickly at his left hand, but it was covered in ink. After ‘appointment’ had a line drawn through it, the next job had been ‘pill,’ then ‘pill’ again. And so on until now.

He held out his right hand and asked me to write ‘no pressure.’ After I was finished, she gave him an approving look and said, “Good man.”

The six day, Tao met me downstairs. He really wanted to see Sehun.

She and I sat on the couch eating popcorn while they sat at the little dinette. They talked a fair amount, but every now and then I had the feeling that Sehun wanted to crawl over the table and beg Tao for...something. But then I watched him unfurl his hand and look at the ink there and then relax.

“I don’t want to add to your burden, and I don’t want to be needy,” Tao looked like he wanted to interrupt Sehun, but Sehun held his phone up. “I have a goal.” When Sehun turned the phone to Tao, I knew he was showing the two photos we’d put together on his phone, the broken Tao and the happy Tao. “This one. This is my goal.” A short sob escaped Tao.

Sehun showed him the palm of his left hand. “My jobs, pills and appointments and being healthy. I will keep going.” Then he showed his right palm. “No pressure. On you. I’m fine. I have amazing help here so you don’t need to worry. Just get better yourself and know you're welcome to come see me anytime.”

I ignored the sniffling I heard next to me when Tao threw his arms around Sehun and sobbed.  “I love you.”

After they both had collected themselves, we joined them at the table with our popcorn. Both of them had puffy eyes, but were smiling. After just a few more minutes of visiting, Sehun got up, went over to Tao and squeezed his shoulder.

“You go get more rest. It's about time for my meds and if I don't take them on time, the wicked witch here will throw me in a stew and feed me to her crows."

Before anyone, including him, could even gasp at his boldness, Sehun found himself picking popcorn out of his hair. “I wasn’t going to throw you in the stew because of your pills. I was going to throw you in because you’re ugly. Anyway, painful as it is to admit that he’s right, he is right. You," she pointed at Tao, "still look like 9 kinds of shit, so you get out of here. "You," she pointed at Sehun, "get ready for the bathroom meeting. You promised to teach me about gay male sex.”

“Dear Lord, I did not.”

"Uhm, yes, you did. Here's the agenda you sent out earlier," she picked up a napkin. "Oh, wait. It says the proper use of dental floss. Sorry.” The she brought her fingers to her chest, batted her eyes and pleaded toward Sehun, "Please...homosexual sex...

“I am never going to feed your obsession with gay porn."

"But, but, I have questions."

And a new Sehun was born. This new Sehun was the Asian half of the gold medal Korean-American bickering team.

++

"Tao, it's card night. Ever play Euchre?" Of course he hadn't. "It’s easy. Bring a couple decks of cards. Leave your dignity at home."

Later that afternoon…

"Partner," she sighed waving a card in Sehun's direction," this is a spade."

"I didn't have any spades."

"Do you think the universe or a court of law or the law of infinite regression cares that you didn't have any spades?  My left bower died a horrible, lonely death because you didn't throw a spade." I thought to tell her that her that her play with the word 'law' got lost in the translation but decided not to ruin it.  

Sehun sat straighter, "Well, I say you should have had hearts."

Her eyes narrowed and her lips pursed. "Shut up and deal you monkey faced turd."

I spit that one out before I had time to rethink it. After a few seconds, Sehun started to howl in laughter. After he slumped over onto the table, she came around and manhandled him back into position and slapped the deck into his hands.

"Just deal.  And deal yourself some spades while you're at it."

A couple hands later she went to the fridge and came back with a jar. She made a show of not being able to open it but when Tao reached out to help she sent him a look that should have set him on fire. Sehun was pretty engrossed in his hand so when she held it to him, he twisted the lid off absently and handed it back. The smell that came from the jar was awful so she rushed over to dump it in the sink. She came back to the table with a bottle of root beer and went through the same damsel in distress routine having Sehun open that also.

"Partner,” Sehun sighed. "If I get a hat with blinking letters that flash the word 'signal,' will that help you?"

"But I had five clubs," she whined.

"Let's take that up with the law of infinite regress." I noticed the difference in his terminology and hers. Evidently so did she.

"Regress?" She squeaked.

He nodded smugly.

"You geniuses always think you're so smart."

Sehun got up to use the bathroom and she went into the kitchen area opening and closing cupboards and drawers.

"This is making me a nervous wreck."

I just smiled and nodded.

"You aren't nervous?"

"No. She's invited him to come play with the adults. And they've made this a world class event."

"You aren't worried she’ll betray him now that he’s accepted."

"I'm positive. First, she's American. Just like China, they don't have this banmal they have in Korea. Actually, she's pretty appalled that because he's stuck as EXO's baby, he's now a grown man in a grown man's body with a grown man's brain and isn't allowed to speak at the table."

When Sehun came out of the bathroom, she was making a show of trying to get the TV working, but failing. Sehun walked over to her.

"What’s wrong?"

"I thought we'd listen to music while we play but the TV won't come on."

Sehun took the remote and immediately started to troubleshoot.

Tao and I watched as she hovered and fretted around him.

After a few minutes she yelled out, "How do you say "don't electrocute yourself" in Korean?"

Finally, Sehun had done an impressive bit of troubleshooting and had found that the trouble was that the remote had no batteries. He looked ridiculously proud of himself as she high-fived him, said she had some in her suitcase and dashed off.

"I'm pretty sure those are the same batteries I saw her slip into her pocket before you got here."

"Are you sure it's okay to mess with him like that?"

"She says that his esteem plays a huge part in how well he recovers. She thinks it will do him a world of good to take care of someone, namely her. Really, I think she's gotten pretty attached to him and has taken him to raise.

"Honestly I cried my eyes out the other day. He’d fallen asleep at the table his head on his arms. She looked at him so fondly for a few minutes then sat next to him. As she smoothed his hair back, I heard her whisper to him,"

"Fly if you're ready, baby. Or take another look over the edge if that's what you need to do so you can fly tomorrow."

By the time they called it a night, Sehun had opened one pickle jar, two pop cans, a twist bottle of root beer, had gotten the bag of chips from the top shelf of the cupboard after squabbling about why the hell it was on the top shelf to begin with since there was nothing on the lower shelves.  Both Tao and I had to turn away when he jumped up to help her with the bathroom door because she had found a strange pile of stuff that needed to go in with her.  

As the days passed, I watched with amazement as he blossomed under her attentions. He had come to her as a young man wrapped in chains designed to keep him a boy. She held her hand out and said, “Break your chains. There is a man inside of you and I’ve got your back as you find him. I am an adult. Come at me and come at me again and the adult inside you will work its way to the front lines.”

She was strong when he needed to test his strength against someone else. She was not as strong when he found this need to protect. He gained pride when he triumphed over her. He gained determination when he didn’t. She asked for his intelligence and his heart and was never…and always…satisfied. His confidence grew and I could see that he was looking at the world around him with different eyes.

It came to me that this woman had raised a teenage boy before.

++

I had worried at first about Tao's and Sehun's relationship as Sehun started to grow; whether Tao would feel the same way about this new Sehun. At first he was really confused and unsure how to be. Every time he came over, which now was just about every day, he was faced with something that he'd never seen before.

One day I opened the door and he looked terrified at the yelling going on behind me. Since I was at the door, they were each yelling in their own languages and not understanding a word, but that didn't seem to get in their way.

"How can someone with such a big giant brain know absolutely nothing?"

"I'm telling you that mind control is the best super power."

One day they were on the roof on a blanket talking politics. Tao came up quietly and said, "Did I just hear the phrase multi-culturalism?" "Yeah. Dude, do you have any idea how well read your boyfriend is?" "Yes. No one sees Sehun the way I do." I looked over at the feisty American stuffing pebbles into Sehun's shoes as she listened raptly to him talking about the Korean War, and thought that maybe there was someone else who did.

Another time he came over they were sitting in the bright sun on lawn chairs on the balcony absently battling to see who could take the other's sock off using only their toes while playing a game of "Would you Rather?"

"Sehun, would you rather eat one of Tao's socks or jump off a really, really high building, or wait, an airplane...or no, the space shuttle with cement blocks tied to your feet and blowfish stuffed down your pants to land in a pile of used diapers and then be eaten by goats.

"That. The one with the goats."

No matter what, they were usually bickering about something. He was stretching his brain in ways I’d never seen for him before.

"You have to learn it in English. It's not funny in Korean."

"Sort of like Law of Infinite Regress?"

As he pulled the dishrag off his face, she went on. “As anal retentive as you Koreans about are about propriety, I'd think you'd understand about not dissing the original creators."

Sehun gave in on that argument.

"Woohoo!" She fist pumped, and then leaned in expectantly. "What are we going to do tonight, Brain?"

He just looked disgusted so she went to him and squished his face in her fingers. Then he said in perfect English, "The same thing we do every night, Pinky. Try to take over the world."

I told Tao how this morning she had started calling him 'Brain' and finally he asked why she kept calling him that. She had responded, "Well, duh, you're Brain because I'm Pinky."

I told him I'd send him some YouTube links later, but that we had then found some Korean subbed episodes of this American cartoon called Pinky and the Brain. They'd spent all morning watching several American cartoons that hovered on the line between kids’ show and adult show. The mess with the pillows all over and the coffee table on its side happened after she had nudged him in the side with her elbow, waggling her eyebrows and saying "Get it? Get it?" one too many times and he retaliated with a head lock and a brutal tickling session.

From that day on she was Pinky and he was Brain.

Tao had started relaxing and accepting this new dynamic by the time we took her out for her birthday. I admit that I was a bad, bad boy and had taken a look at the driver’s license in the wallet she had left open on the table and discovered that her birthday was that very week.

I told Sehun and Tao, both of whom immediately thought to invite all of Asia to an enormous bash. I said I thought she would like something with the four of them better. So we surprised her with a movie.

“This? _This_?” her voice rose in the darkened theater. “You’re taking me to see an American movie dubbed in Korean?”

“It's explosions,” Sehun said. “You like explosions.  Explosions don't need to be in English.”

After much sighing she finally said, “Fine.”

Tao just snickered when Sehun started muttering, “Decrepit, short, scrawny...”

Sehun found himself wearing popcorn again and she said, “Watch how you speak to your elders.”

“We haven't established for sure that you are my elder,” Sehun said.

She squealed like a girl, leaped into this lap, and snuggled her face into his neck. Then she stood up, brushed off her shirt, snatched the bucket of popcorn and said, “You better be right about this or you'll need to start checking your pajamas for blowfish.”

The last time he got there we watched for a few moments as she leaped and hopped up and down on the couch trying to grab the remote he held over his head.

“I said, No!” Sehun shouted, and then he looked at Tao. “She wants to watch Bloody Monday. Again!”

“But, Tao, it’s aaaaaawesome! There’s computer hacking and spies and heroes, and...”

“Don’t listen to her; she just wants to watch Miura Haruma.”

“Who?”

“Some Japanese guy,” Sehun sounded like someone reciting the same thing for the 800th time when he said, “who makes us EXO clowns look like mutts.”

She slid over to Tao and pressed against his side. “Hey, you’re more popular than God. Can you get him for me for my birthday?”

Sehun turned her around by the top of her head. “Have I told you that you’re creepy?”

“If I haven’t lost count, that’s the eighth time today, you jerk.”

Sehun had talked to me earlier about getting some alone time with Tao. He wasn't interested just yet in going back to the dorm and wondered if I’d get her out of the room for a while. So I knew what to do when he glanced at me and then turned to Tao.

“How about we get rid of Pinky here,” he said, “and fight for the remote?”

“But, but,” she pouted, genuinely, I believed. “Where should I go? What should I do?”

I snapped my fingers. “I know.” Then I ran to her suitcase and came back with one of the two pair of shoes she brought with her. It was a pair of sandals and one of them had a broken strap.

“No way!” She pointed at me, backing up. “Not gonna happen.” 

From her reaction, I assumed she didn't understand what I was getting at. “Shoe shopping,” I clarified.

She ran on the other side of Sehun and grabbed him around the waist. “No. No, no, no. I hate shoe shopping. Don’t make me.”

We all just stood there for several seconds. Finally Sehun pried her arms off him and looked at me. “Come get her and don’t bring her back for four hours no matter how hard she begs.”

I didn't think she was entirely kidding, but I grabbed her arm and started pulling her toward the door.

“Pleeeease. Not shoe shopping.” I kept tugging, ignoring her pleading but finally had to laugh as the door was closing and she yelled one last instruction. “Stay off my bed. Unless you’re going to take pictures.”

Just before the door closed, I heard Sehun yell back, “Creep.”

I came to find out that she really did hate shoe shopping.  She sat on the bench gloomily while I brought pair after pair of size six shoes until finally, she picked one.  For someone who cared so little about shoes she was damn picky.

++

"Excerciiiiiiiiiiiiiise!" she hollered.

Sehun actually perked up. We had been in this hotel room pretty solid for a while now and he was a physically fit young man.

"Teach me to dance." His arms fell to his sides and he just stared at her.

"Don't make me hurt you." She turned to show him her sweatpants and t-shirt and then slunk up to press against him.

"You, me, SM headquarters, music, mirrors," she gave him more of eyebrow waggling.

"Don't make me retch."

"As if I'd want your scrawny ass, which, if you'll recall, was number 10 out of 11. You should send ChanYeol a thank you card for keeping you from being dead last. Anyway, my heart lies yonder." She looked for a second like she was swooning and then shoved him toward his room. "Five minutes."

It was pretty amusing watching this spectacle disguised as dance lessons. Actually she wasn’t uncoordinated and her stamina was pretty good, but Sehun was way advanced and was having a hard time remembering what beginner dance lessons were. Tao came to stand by me and I could tell he was really amused, too.

“I’m glad he wasn’t my teacher. Makes me appreciate the ones I had.”

Finally, on this latest set of instructions given snidely to her by Sehun, her legs twisted around each other and she crashed into the wall.

"Why won't you cooperate?” she yelled at her left leg. “I'm telling you, I'm scratching you off my Christmas card list if you don’t get your act together.”

She tried for a few more minutes, and then stopped, her eyes wide with excitement.

“It's the music. It's this song.” She ran over and turned off “History,” made a rude gesture at the equipment and then got out her phone. After fiddling a minute she held up her finger expectantly. Music filled the room.

 _They're Pinky and the Brain Brain Brain Brain Brain_ …

Sehun didn’t miss a beat and broke out into the choreography for Growl. Within 10 seconds she had slid to the floor and was laughing so hard I could see tears on her cheeks. When he added the Wolf chomping move, I was worried that she was going to pass out from lack of oxygen.

When we finally left the practice room, he carried himself in a way I’d never seen before. The look on his face was very smug but as we walked down the hall, Sehun with his arm slung over her shoulder, I thought he was standing taller than I’d ever seen and I could tell that Tao had seen it as well.

We started going to SM everyday for exercise, and there were always fans hanging around. They didn’t bother her too much unless she thought they were bothering Sehun by being too close. When we arrived at SM this morning, there was a small clutch of girls standing by the steps so that they’d be within reach of touching all of us. Honestly that was unacceptable to all of us and I could feel her mom claws starting to unsheathe.

Then I was being dragged along by my shirt until we were standing in front of the fans.

“Move it! Go on, git!” She made shooing motions at them. They looked warily at her but didn’t move. Then she stomped her feet and waved at the same time, “I said move it. You’re too close. Get back.”

The girls moved a couple of inches but still didn’t look like they were going to go. Then I knew my mouth was hanging open when she snatched the cell phone from the closest girl.

“Let's see...eomeoni, eomeoni, eomeoni.” She pretended to scroll through the Korean on the phone.

She continued to swipe around on the screen and yelled to me. “Get their phones,” she said and tapped the face of the phone in her hand. “Call eomeoni.” Evidently I didn’t move fast enough, because she swiped out her hand and I found myself holding several phones.

The owner of the phone she was holding, was trying to reach it but was held at a distance while she was yelling into the phone, “Hello? Eomeoni? Hello?”

Next thing I know we are standing there alone; all the girls in this huddle having run away. I looked down and found that I still had two phones in my hand. “What am I supposed to do with these?”

She shrugged. “I'm sure they have cooties.”

I almost laughed at the look on Tao’s and Sehun’s faces. Until they looked at me and said, “You’re fired.”

As we were leaving the building she came to me and rubbed her fingers together. “Money.”

“Sure. Can I ask what for?”

“Have you ever been to Cincinnati, Ohio?”

I instantly knew where she was going with this and I let out a loud whoop. “Skyline!!!!!!”

She grinned and gave me a high five.

Skyline Chili was a restaurant local to Cincinnati and it was awesome. She told me that she wanted overnight shipping from Skyline for everything she’d need to fix their signature dishes for all of EXO.

Two days later she was working in the kitchen at the EXO dorm. Skyline had shipped everything we’d need plus a couple of menus so everyone could see what the dishes were supposed to look like. Everyone’s eyes nearly popped out of their heads when they saw the amount of cheese they were expected to eat.

I joined her to see if I could help and she handed me cans of beans to open while she started thawing the chili in the microwave. As soon as I plugged in the can opener and pressed the handle, both the can opener and the microwave stopped; it tripped a breaker. I had forgotten about that little quirk in the kitchen.

She participated in the gorging that followed, but I could tell she was thoughtful. After everything was cleaned up and half the members were sleeping off the overload of lactose, she pulled me aside.

“Where’s the breaker box?”

After we got there, she opened the door and grinned.

“Yanno, that situation in the kitchen is really dangerous.”

I shrugged. Technically she was correct, but that was the very purpose of these breakers; to prevent dangerous situations.

“This is going to be a test of your wiles and your influence. I want to split the overloaded circuit.” She got a wicked look on her face. “And there isn’t any more room in this box for another circuit, so it’ll need a new box, too.”

“Uhm…” Wow. This was some kind of mom taking on the dorm infrastructure for the EXO members.

“And, I want Sehun to do the work.”

I wasn’t like her; I actually could become speechless. And in my silence, she continued.

“Do whatever you need to do to get permission to hire an electrician to work on the dorm. Then, find just the perfect electrician who will guide Sehun and stand back and let him do the work.”

“He starts practice for Japan tomorrow.”

“Your point?”

I scratched my head. “I don’t have one I guess.”

The job took three weeks working around Sehun’s schedule and the powering off and on of different parts of the dorm. The first day after Sehun worked with the electrician, he waltzed up to her and I thought he was expecting a parade or something. She just looked up from her book and said “Don’t leave your towel on the floor after your shower.”

After he helped the electrician pack up the tools for the last time, he went to her and said, “I’m finished.”

“Thank you,” was all she said. I know he expected more from her, but I could tell that something new had lodged itself inside of him

The next day the four of us walked to a nearby park at her suggestion. After we were seated at a picnic table, she reached into her pocket and held whatever she pulled out in a fist.

“Good job, Sehun. I know you expected parties or parades for this work, but there are none of those things for taking care of your life.” She opened her hand and inside was a key. “Take this and remember that you’re a man. You can take care of yourself and those you love. If EXO goes to hell tomorrow, you’ll be just fine.” She slid it across the table to him. “There’s more to you than you know, than anyone knows, and there’s nothing you can’t do.”

As I watched Sehun grip the key and cry against Tao’s shoulder, I thought I might just love this woman.

She seemed to be rushing things more and more when, the next day she told him he should go see his parents. He wasn’t too keen on the idea because things had been strained. She told him that there was nothing in a parent-child relationship that couldn’t be fixed. So he went and took Tao, which, it turned out was one of the things he worried about most.

I found her sitting on the couch and I could tell she was melancholy. I had something that would cheer her up.

“Hey, I snapped this while he wasn’t looking.” I showed her a photo of two key rings. Tao had made one and his had one key with a little plastic tab on it that said, “Sehun.” Sehun’s had three keys on his each with a plastic marker. One said, “electrician,” one said, “carry Tao,” and one said, “make her laugh.”

Her face crumpled and she burst into tears. But only for a moment and she collected herself.

“Guess I'm going to have to watch another one leave the nest.” And I knew it was time for her to go.

I suddenly realized that we knew absolutely nothing about her.  

“Will you tell me something about yourself?”

“Ha, if you had asked I'd have told you things about myself until you begged me to shut up.” She went and got her laptop. The background that had Tao at the beginning of this now had photos of two people, one woman who looked about twenty five and one young man in his late teens; her children. As she talked about them, she rubbed her fingers across their images and cried.

We talked for a while and she shared some of her experience with mental illness. Honestly, it was horrible and much, much worse than Sehun’s experience. When it had come to fight or flight, her husband fought as long as he could and then had chosen flight.  From her story, I came to realize that having someone gripping your hand tightly and not letting go made all the difference in the world.  

“Will you stay for the two Japan stages?”

“Are you crazy? Come all the way to Korea and then not watch them all dance around in their grandmothers’ nightgowns? I better be in the front row.”

++

“You really want to sit in the audience?” Sehun asked her.

“Why wouldn’t I?”

“Look at them.”

She looked at him thoughtfully. “I want you to get another key and call that one ‘caretaker.’

“What?”

“You’re a natural caretaker; you took good care of me. Now look out there at the faces of these girls. They are so young and so hopeful and idealistic and they are just now feeling the beginnings of womanhood.”

“But all that’s for me. And they don’t even know me.”

“You’re no different than they are. You make assumptions about people every day. We all do. These girls are young and innocent. And Sehun of EXO has been presented as a super hero.”

Sehun was listening and looking out at the audience.

“They don’t know you, so they’ve created you. What did they create? A perfect person. They’re giving you the gift of overlooking every single one of your flaws.”

“But their expectations are unreasonable.”

“Do you know why I’m here? Because of Tao’s unreasonable expectations.”

“Not unreasonable,” Tao jumped in.

“Shut up and go take care of those tender hearts out there.”

++

While she slept in a seat on the plane back to Korea, I pulled Sehun and Tao aside. I had to wait until Sehun could wipe the smile off his face from all the compliments he got about his performance and his interaction with the fans.

“It’s time for her to go.” Sehun looked like he was going to argue but ended up closing his mouth.

“Do you know that we know nothing about her?” I said. “I finally asked and she showed me photos of her two children. She cried because she misses them.”

Sehun slumped back in his seat. “Dear god. I never gave it even...”

“Don't go there. She talked to me about you, saying that she was watching another leave the nest. She was so ridiculously proud and happy.” I smiled at him. “She loves you very much. She is very glad she came. But it's time to send her home.”

++

1 year later

bestman: France is lovely this time of year.

mommabird: AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAgh! Are you serious??????

bestman: oui, chica

mommabird: OMG. I'll need to schedule vacation and find a dog sitter, and get a new toothbrush, and buy a dress and new shoes...wait...ugh...shoe shopping. Never mind, you'll have to christen the blessed couple without me.

bestman: I knew you'd say that so since I know your shoe size, I have a spiffy new pair sitting right here next to me.

mommabird: They aren't cowboy boots are they?

bestman: Does it matter?

mommabird: Meh. Not really

bestman: LOL

mommabird: Okay then. I'll be at the corner of Walk and Don't Walk waiting for the limo.

bestman: Awesome!!!!

mommabird: Hey, could you make sure the driver is that smokin' hot blond from last year?

mommabird: Hello?

mommabird: Hellllooooo?

mommabird: Pffft. Jealousy is soooooo not chill.


End file.
